


Seeing Kakashi

by memoriesandmint



Series: Loving Kakashi [1]
Category: Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Maybe some angst, Reader-Insert, Self-Indulgent, Self-Insert, civillian reader, really canon is a suggestion, shinobi/sensei kashi, soft, somewhere after the chunin exams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-07 02:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18401387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memoriesandmint/pseuds/memoriesandmint
Summary: Kakashi returns from a mission injured, but very much in love. Nonsensical fluff with a touch of angst.





	Seeing Kakashi

Kakashi doesn’t remember happiness, not the kind he feels when he enters Konoha again with Team Seven at his back with the sunset. The sky is rose and lavender, but you’re still bathed in yellow light. Kakashi is dangerously exhausted, likely dehydrated, and still bleeding from the shoulder, but you’re wearing something white that flows around your thighs and that stuff that makes your cheekbones glow. He can’t take his eyes off you, not even when he hits his knees.

  
Genma gets to him before you; his long legs and shinobi speed make your reflexes look slow, but you’re not far behind. You shuffle your fiance’s silver head into your lap, and Genma puts a bit of pressure on Kakashi’s shoulder.

  
Naruto is apologizing. Sasuke is silent, but hovers just behind you, so close that you feel his knee brush your back as he watches over his sensei. Sakura is crying.  
“I’m alright, Sakura . . . Sasuke. It’s alright, Naruto.” Kakashi’s eyes are closed, and his voice is quiet. He searches for something with his cheek, content when you draw your fingers over his face.

  
“‘Kashi . . .” Your voice is a whisper.

  
He says nothing, but weakly finds your free hand with one of his. You don’t miss the redness of his fingers from trying to staunch his own bleeding.

  
The sight propels you into realization, and you turn to inspect Kakashi’s squad so quickly that something in your neck pops, and everything is white hot for a few seconds. When your vision clears, you see the raised scratches on Naruto’s hands, the dark bruise on Sasuke’s chin, and the red line down Sakura’s arm.

  
Genma notices your concerned gaze. “Are the rest of you okay?”

  
They’re all shaken and answer affirmatively, but you’re unconvinced. Sasuke looks the most capable of carrying out orders, so you catch his attention. You’re no sensei, but you were the first to notice the formation of your fiance’s found-family, and you’d encouraged the bond. Your open-door policy hadn’t changed when you moved in with Kakashi before their Chunin Exams, and Team Seven would do whatever you asked for one of your homemade dinners. This wasn’t the first time they’d relied on your judgement, and they trusted you.

  
“Sasuke, find the medics. Once you do, stay at the hospital; you’re hurt.”

  
The boy looks so haunted he reminds you less of himself than another Uchiha for a moment. His jaw works, but tears still slide down his face when he nods. What happened between Suna and Konoha?

  
When Sasuke leaves, you ask Naruto exactly that, and he’s more coherent than Sakura, but you still grasp only: “rogue shinobi,” “genjutsu,” and something that sounds, again, like “I’m sorry.”

  
You listen, but your attention is on Kakashi, the way his shredded jacket sticks to Genma’s hand if he releases the pressure, the fact that his mask has slipped without his notice. Only some of the cuts are visible, as is half an inch of the scar that bisects his sharingan and cheekbone. You want to touch the skin there, but your group is starting to attract the attention of passing shinobi and civilians, so you gently pull the covering back into place, concealing the pieces your fractured fiance chooses to keep secret.  
Ino is the first to approach. She practically slams into Sakura, but it’s not an embrace. Sakura was trembling before, but Ino is shaking her now.

  
“Where’s Sasuke?” The girl’s voice is so shrill that you almost believe it couldn’t come from Ino. You know her from the Yamanaka’s flower shop, where you went often before Kakashi, noticing your affinity for flowers, took over buying your bouquets. Sometimes you go together, and afterward he tells you about the girls’ rivalry.

  
You’re about to interject when Ino separates from Sakura, though her movements are jerky and reluctant. She’s bathed in shadow, so you look for the Nara boy. He’s standing between his father and Asuma, hands positioned in front of his torso, mouth not exerting enough muscles to frown. Under his jutsu, Ino steps back, and Sakura remains standing despite the shaking of her knees.

  
It’s apparent to the crowd that Genma is doing everything short of actually treating the Copy Ninja. They give you a wide berth, and a few medics push through the crowd just before Shikamaru has to release his hold on Sakura. They’ve taken Kakashi from you, so your arms are free to catch her, and you acknowledge Shikamaru’s effort with a nod before following the medics to the hospital.

  
You’re only alone for as long as Naruto’s psychological exam takes. He’s upset, but he’ll be fine, so he’s released into your care, and you know you should take him home with you, but you can’t bring yourself to leaving the waiting room. The two of you are still there when a nurse discharges Sasuke, and you drop the boys off in Sakura’s room before following the same nurse to see your fiance.

  
Kakashi ‘s headband lays near his bed, but his mask stays put because the nurses come and go without announcing their presence. Over the course of the next two days, Kakashi only lets go of your hand so you can collect the food your friends bring and stretch your legs on the way to the restroom. By the time he’s discharged, you’re dying to get him into a bed meant for more than one person and out of the robe that makes him look impossibly human.

  
You take him home. His mask is off as soon as the door clicks shut, and you briefly wonder if he’s actually ripped it from his face. You thought he might use whatever strength he’s mustered to slam your back against the wooden frame, but he’s not even kissing you, just standing close with one hand on your chin and the other on your back.  
The moment makes you ache. The first time Kakashi did this, he’d asked you to come over in the middle of the afternoon, and you did because you could hear his voice, and you couldn’t imagine his lips because you’d only seen them in the darkness of his bedroom, but you could visualize his eyes. When you’d arrived, the blinds weren’t pulled, and all the lights in his house were on, and there, in the living room, he pulled his mask down and it was just like this moment, and when you asked what this was all about, he said the same thing that his familiar lips are saying now.

  
“I just need you to see me right now.”

  
The first time, you didn’t tell him that you’d always seen him. When he bought Icha Icha from you, the girl at the bookstore, you saw him. When he started walking you home from work because he knew you always left last, you saw him. On the night he came in with you, you saw him. On the night you went home with him instead, you saw him. On the night he told you about it all, about his father, about Rin, about Obito, about Minato and Kushina, and about everything that kept him awake at night, you saw him.  
None of that was what he meant; it wasn’t what he needed. This, this was seeing him.

  
The first time, he let you look at him for as long as you wanted, and when you asked if you could touch him, he brought your fingers to his face himself. Once you’d assured yourself that his face was committed to memory, he explained that he hadn’t been sleeping, but managed an afternoon nap, and--even in the light of day--the nightmares hounded him. He told you that no one alive who mattered to him had ever seen his face, had ever seen him, and it took him three more weeks to say what he was implying, but you understood even then.

  
Today, though, you tell him. “I see you, ‘Kashi. I always see you.”

  
Kakashi knows that. Sometimes, though, he needs to hear it. Those words, with your fingers firmly fixed to his jaw, nearly bring him to his knees again.


End file.
